The founder of CRIME STOPPERS, Greg MacAleese, recently reviewed Cal Millars book What Is Crime Stoppers.

​​​​I’ve just spent a week reading Cal Millar’s book “What is Crime Stoppers?” and, I must admit, I have received quite an education. This might seem like a surprising admission from the man who founded Crime Stoppers in the first place, back in 1976. But the scope and depth of this unique collection of national, state-wide and local programs, as well as the Scholastic Crime Stoppers programs, is truly breathtaking.

According to Crime Stoppers International, the umbrella organization for 22 countries under the Crime Stoppers banner, a major crime is solved every 14 minutes through a citizen’s tip to a Crime Stoppers program. That adds up to more than 1.5 million crimes solved in the past 38 years. Billions of dollars worth of stolen property and narcotics has been recovered. And more than $100 million (US) has been paid out in rewards.

The author has dissected the essence of Crime Stoppers from its beginning in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to its expansion from the United States, to Canada, to Australia, then the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, throughout the Caribbean and most recently South Africa.

Although the basic tenets of Crime Stoppers remain the same in each location – the program is a cooperative effort between the community, the police and the media and offers cash rewards and anonymity to citizens who have information about major unsolved crimes – one of the unique aspects of Crime Stoppers is that each organization has the freedom to customize their program to the needs of their community.

It is this uniqueness that Cal Millar details in “What is Crime Stoppers?